Highway marker commemorating Gloucester Hall to be unveiled

A state historical marker commemorating the now-vanished 17th century manor house called Gloucester Hall will be dedicated in Gloucester at 1 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 26. The marker will be located near the intersection of Route 17 and Bacons Fort Road.

Gloucester Hall was built around the 1660s by Col. John Pate on the 2,100-acre plantation he inherited in 1672, according to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, which issued the marker.

In 1676, Nathaniel Bacon, leader of an uprising of colonial frontiersmen and planters against Native Americans and the colony’s authorities, died at Gloucester Hall of a fatal illness. This effectively ended what came to be known as Bacon’s Rebellion, according to the marker. The text of the marker reads as follows:

"Near here stood Gloucester Hall (built ca. 1660s), where Bacon’s Rebellion effectively ended with the fatal illness of its leader, Nathaniel Bacon, in 1676. In 1684, this house served as the first Virginia residence of Royal Governor Francis Howard, baron of Howard of Effingham, whose wife, Lady Philadelphia Pelham Howard, died there in 1685.